The Twelve Wars
by xmercykiller
Summary: A new siren has split Krieg into 12 parts, how on Pandora will the vault hunters handle this? Also would like some reviews for this so I can get better at this
1. Introduction

My name is Krieg, a mind that has lost control of its body, that is to say my body and I are constantly at war. It isn't so bad once you get used to the burning, bleeding, maiming, and screaming gibberish that no one understands; or at least it wasn't, until the fourth siren the vault hunters met split me into twelve, equally insane and equally violent Kriegs.

That siren, Sybil, used her power of phasesplit to multiply my body by twelve, with each clone representing a different attribute of him. First, there is **Blitzkrieg,** a clone that has speed ten times the original and whose attacks focus on that enhanced speed. He is significantly thinner than the original, but other than that there is not much physical difference. The second is **Feuerkrieg, **who prefers burning everything in sight and whose flames shine a bright white, any attacker that approaches him is set alight before they can even touch him. Thirdly is **Wutkrieg**, who goes into battle attacking blindly, not paying attention to whether friend or foe is on the other end of his buzz axe. He always has a look of anger on his face, like he would end your life in an instant if it were not for me preventing him from doing so. **Blutkrieg** is the fourth clone, he chops up enemies in a way that they don't die immediately, but perish after profusely bleeding from every wound his axe has made. Blutkrieg's axe never leaves his right hand and therefore it has fused to it. The fifth and most deadly one is **Lebenkrieg**, who finds the fastest and most efficient way to take lives; his weapon of choice is whatever does the most damage to the enemy at hand, although none of his methods match the same power as the other clones. The embodiment of explosions is the sixth clone, called **Pulverkrieg**, who keeps grenades and dynamite strapped to him at all times and is his only attack. He carries many grenade mods to suit whatever he feels like the grenade should do next; and if he is compromised, he triggers all the explosives on his body at once. **Schreienkrieg** has the loudest voice of all, and uses it to stun his opponents and make their ears bleed and eventually their heads explode from the massive vibrations. When he isn't screaming at the top of his lungs, you can hear him softly muttering to himself, but he is never completelysilent. The eighth and most difficult to control is **Starkekrieg**, who uses no weapon except the ones attached to his arms, he is twice as big as the original Krieg. This one always gets into competitions with Brick, I wonder what Brick thinks of him. Perhaps the most disturbing of the bunch is **Fleischkrieg**, who you will often see ripping flesh from bone with his bare teeth and afterward savoring in the taste of the recently slain enemy. He wears a decaying grin and smells worse than skag breath.

Of the twelve there are three special ones, the first of which being the one and only Krieg himself, severely weakened from the power leaving his body for the clones'. The second and by far the easiest to control is **Liebekrieg**, who can always be found next to Maya, protecting her from all that would wish her harm. And finally myself, **Geistkrieg**, when the siren split us into twelve it gave me a body I could control again. The problem is that it takes all of my mental power to control the other Kriegs and my own body wanders around aimlessly, if I slip and allow one of them to escape my will, they will attack the one they see as an oppressor. If that happens, there will be eleven psychos out there killing everything and anything they can get their hands on. I will not let that happen.


	2. The Siren

As the elevator descended down into Caustic Caverns, Mordecai was examining his custom Jakobs sniper rifle. He had carved into the side of the body Bloodwing's name and attached a beak shaped hinge to the end of the barrel that opened whenever he pulled the trigger, he called it Blood's Little Brother. He glances over at Krieg standing perfectly still beside him, who is slightly slouched over and holding his buzz axe just a few inches off the ground staring seemingly at nothing.

Mordecai breaks the silence with a question, "You glad to be getting a break from killing bandits and robots to kill varkids and threshers?"

"All meat is delicious!" Krieg utters with an excited tone, as he starts tossing the axe from hand to hand.

Mordecai nods his head, not fully understanding the answer he was given, "I'm just happy to finally be getting some practice in, sometimes the hangover just isn't worth it if you don't kill a few things the night before."

The elevator approaches the bottom but just before it lands Krieg jumps off, runs toward the giant, steel doors protecting them from the outside, and violently hammers them over and over again. As he is doing so, Mordecai calmly walks over to the red wheeled valve and turns it.

Krieg is still hammering when the doors open and he takes one large swing straight down, strikes the ground, looks up and screams," The giant metal box has spilled its guts!" The loud banging had caught the attention of the varkids and they were ready to attack as soon as the doors opened, Krieg started swinging his axe all around him so that any varkid that came close was sliced in half almost immediately. Mordecai leaned on the wall with his arms crossed watching Krieg, letting his comrade have his fun. Krieg's swings began to slow down and Mordecai noticed a few pods growing in the background; he gets down on one knee, aims his weapon, and begins taking out the pods before they can hatch. Krieg was still tirelessly swinging when the varkids had all ceased to spawn, having to get a few more non connecting blows before realizing they were all gone, but he eventually calmed down.

Mordecai hears a faint buzzing from above and looks up to see an adult varkid slowly hovering down and says with a little anger in his voice, "Damn things, no matter how many you kill still more show up" as he aims his gun again and fires.

The shot pierces right through the varkid's head and its body lands right behind Krieg, who doesn't take much notice of it except to pick it up by a leg, hold it above his head and yell, "The barbeque is over, but my stomach is still empty!" in his usual, maniacal voice. Krieg throws down the insect and turns to the next area, where it looks peaceful aside from the sizzling, green swamp right next to it. Mordecai leads on with his weapon at the ready, while Krieg follows leisurely swinging his axe through the air. The hunter expects a few crystalisks to emerge from the ground, but strangely nothing happens and he makes a mental note to tell Lilith when he got back to Sanctuary and continues walking into thresher territory. One pops out of the ground behind Krieg and he turns around surprised but instinctually runs up to it and brings his axe down on its head, pinning it to the ground. A few more small threshers suddenly appear all around them and Krieg lets out a terrifying scream of enjoyment as he slices tentacles and severs heads, with Mordecai taking out any that Krieg happens to miss. This continues all throughout the thresher territory until they come upon three humongous monstrosities; a super badass fire thresher, super badass shock thresher, and one they had never seen before. It possessed tentacles that had a hardened ball and others with three claw like fingers on the ends.

Mordecai shouts out, "Qué demonios?" and starts shooting at critical hit spots on the shock thresher while Krieg is automatically attracted to the fire thresher and starts hacking away at its tentacles, but the third just seems to be sitting back and waiting. The shock thresher advances toward Mordecai, making it difficult for him to shoot with precision; and the multitude of tentacles the fire thresher owns starts to overpower Krieg. Mordecai desperately shouts, "If only Lilith were here, we could take these pendejos no problem" and Krieg proclaims enthusiastically, "So much bacon and so much fire!"

Mordecai eventually gives up and tells Krieg, "Screw it, let's retreat" but Krieg doesn't listen and Mordecai has to shoot him in the foot to wake him from his trance. As they begin to run away, Mordecai looks back to see the third thresher dive underground and head towards them with great speed and it eventually shows itself it front of them, knocking them out and dragging them away.

Mordecai wakes up holding his head and grunting and takes a look around to see Krieg laying face first on the ground still unconscious with arms and legs sprawled out. His vision is blurry and there is hardly any light besides a small flicker emanating from somewhere, he decides that he should wait for Krieg to come to and his vision to clear up before he seeks out the strange glow.

A few minutes later, Krieg lifts his head and opens his eyes but sees complete darkness and shouts out, "This gloomy binding ensnares us all!"

Mordecai asks him, "Glad you're awake, how ya feelin?" Krieg jumps up onto his feet and replies with, "The bloody hatred has a stripped belly that others will enjoy for a tasty breakfast!" Mordecai sighs, unable to get even a single, sensible word out of his friend; and he says, "Good to hear, we should find a way out, follow me" as he heads toward the light.

After a few hours of walking down into the seemingly endless cave they come across a huge, dome shaped room illuminated by thousands of yellow crystals and Mordecai says, "Well I guess we know what happened to all the crystalisks now."

Krieg gazes at the lights with wide eyes and a gaping mouth before screaming, "The gum drop's entrails make my brain hurt, make it stop!" and throwing an axe at the ceiling. At the center of the room is a small house like building constructed from hollowed out spiderant exoskeletons and held together by thresher tentacles. Krieg shouts, "I wanna live in the candy house!" and starts to run towards it.

Just before he enters, a beautiful woman with blue tribal tattoos and curly blonde hair holds her hand in front of his face and says, "Hello friends."

Mordecai widens his eyes instantly as he realizes what the woman is and exclaims, "No way, are you a siren?" as he slowly approaches her.

"Why yes, and who might you be?" she asked with pure innocence in her voice.

"We're vault hunters and….holy shit a siren." The amazed hunter couldn't even finish his sentence, "We gotta tell Lilith and Maya."

The siren clenches her fists as her eyes and tattoos start to glow with a dark, black light and she says very angrily, "You may tell no one of my existence!" before she places the palm of her hand on Krieg's chest and sends him flying backwards. Mordecai looks back and watches Krieg hit the wall and whips Blood's Little Bro out, thank God he didn't lose it during the incident with the threshers, but as soon as he turns around the siren is right in front of him and she back hands him, sending him just as far as Krieg went.

Mordecai hits the wall and the breathe is knocked out of him and he falls down to one knee, he glances over at Krieg whose back is leaned against the wall with his head down and eyes closed. He is not moving. Mordecai rubs his eyes to clear his foggy vision and starts crawling toward his friend crying, "No, not another one!" He gets close and puts his hand on his chest and feels it rising up and down and overwhelmingly says, "Gracias a dios, he's alive."

He stands up, having regained his strength, and goes to pick up his dropped sniper rifle and anxiously runs into the house, pointing his gun at the siren. He starts to pull the trigger but notices that the girl was no longer glowing and was curled up in the corner not even reacting to him, he listens for a moment and hears a faint terrified voice saying, "They're coming for me, they're coming for me. If anyone finds out I'm here they'll kill me, no, worse than kill me." Mordecai backs up silently out of the house and goes back to Krieg, checking on his condition.

He tries to ECHO Lilith but she doesn't answer, so he tries to ECHO Zed, he picks up and before Zed can say anything he hurriedly says, "Zed, get Lilith as fast as you can!"

"Well can I finish helpin this patient fir…"

"Now! Zed." Mordecai says slightly annoyed.

"Fine whatever you say, he didn't deserve to live anyway." As he rushes over to the Crimson Raider's HQ.

A few moments later, Lilith answers saying, "Mordy? Tannis took my ECHO recorder with my knowing for her experiments, what's up?"

"We were knocked out and taken somewhere underground by the threshers while hunting in Caustic Caverns, we need help right now. Bring Zed, Brick, and Zer0, there are three badass threshers. Look for a hole in the ground in the area just before the infested warehouse. There's a siren, Lil, a powerful one."


	3. Recruitment

"We're on our way" says Lilith, shocked by the last part of Mordecai's message.

Mordecai injects Krieg with all the insta-health vials he has on him, but he still isn't waking up. Mordecai's instinct tells him to go in the house and force the siren to tell him what she did, but considering his first impression of her, he thought that would make the situation worse before it would make it better. So instead he stands guard in front of Krieg until Dr. Zed arrived, ready to apply healing kits if his breathing ever stops.

Lilith stands next to the map table in the center of the second floor of the HQ, completely stunned by what Mordecai said last, "A siren? Another one? Why now, only a few weeks after we killed Handsome Jack?"

She shook her head to get back to her senses and called for Brick, who was doing one finger pushups on the balcony as usual, "What?" he responded.

"Sounds like Mordy and Krieg got themselves into some serious trouble." Not being able to stop her natural sarcasm from slipping out.

"I'm sure my slab can handle whatever this planet throws at him." Brick says, not bothering to stop his workout.

"Brick, they've met another siren, and she doesn't sound friendly." Brick pauses at the top of a pushup, then stands up and says, "Oh, damn."

The pair go to retrieve Dr. Zed who replies with, "Dangit I just got back here. Sorry, I really did try, but you probably should have gone to someone with an actual medical degree." he said to the still conscious patient on his chair.

They all fast travel to Overlook, the might as well be deserted town, they spawn a bandit technical. Lilith gets in the driver seat, Brick takes up the mounted gun, and Zed climbs into the back and sits down with his knees up. Lilith takes off as fast as the clunky car will allow and passes under the giant, stone arch; Brick has some fun shooting up the small threshers and stalkers that show up, but Lilith is going too fast for him to completely kill anything. They make their way up to the entrance of Aggregate Acquisition, where Zer0 had gone to snipe some threshers, stalkers, and loaders; Brick takes out the turrets that are on either side of the gate and says, "Damn, how long has he been up there, the enemies have already respawned."

Lilith and Brick exit the vehicle and Dr. Zed says, "I think I'll stay out here, where the robots won't blow me to bits."

Brick turns toward him and says, "Really? You wanna stay where the stalkers and threshers that I didn't get to kill can sneak up on you." Zed remains silent and follows the two vault hunters as Lilith fills the loaders and Hyperion personnel with holes while Brick uses his usual method, punching.

All is going well as they make their way to the bridge; Zed even feels comfortable enough to say, "I'm glad you vault hunters are killing everyone and not just beating them to within an inch of their life, saves me the trouble of having to fix em all up." That is until they get to the badass constructor that always guards the bridge, by then the doc is hiding under the bridge where the constructor's nukes can't hit him. Brick charges into it, fists a swingin' while Lilith fires at its eye whenever the reflector shield is down, dodging the other loaders' attacks and it eventually blows up with a small mushroom cloud.

The huge explosion finally gets Zer0's attention, he is on the top of the highest building, and he jumps down in front of the two vault hunters and the doctor saying, "I will get you back, you messed up the perfect shot, why is the doc here?"

Lilith puts on a serious expression and tells him, "Mordy and Krieg are in trouble, but he didn't tell me why they needed a doctor." On the way back to the fast travel station, Zed mentions, "You know this is the first time I've actually been with you on one of your adventures, and it's pretty exhilarating despite the fact that I feel like I will have to perform surgery on myself soon."

Lilith tries to calm his fears by saying, "Don't worry doc, you got three vault hunters protecting you."

Everyone stays silent the rest of the way, they all know how serious meeting another siren is, but they never imagined that she would be against them. Once they arrive in caustic caverns, no one speaks, they focus on getting to their friends, luckily the varkids and threshers that Mordecai and Krieg eliminated are still gone.

They reach the area before the infested warehouse and everything is calm; Lilith instructs everyone, "Mordy said they were underground, look for a tunnel." Just as she says that the three badass threshers pop out of the ground and Zer0 activates deception and runs toward the pounder thresher, which is the one with maces and graspers on the ends of its tentacles. Lilith uses phaseblast to teleport the shock thresher high up into the air and Brick pulls out his giant hammer and runs straight toward the fire thresher. Zer0 jumps high into the air and as he falls he slices off half of the pounder thresher's tentacles in one fell swoop; as the shock thresher is falling, Lilith makes sure to pump it with as many bullets from Miss Moxxi's Good Touch as she can and Brick is catching tentacles from the fire thresher and crushes them against rocks with his hammer. After the pounder thresher is injured, it attempts to flee into a hole at the base of the structure that holds up the pipe behind the second crate but just before it is completely submerged, Zer0 pins its tail to the ground with his sabre; Lilith finishes her fight with another phaseblast and Brick flattens the fiery beast with his hammer and fists.

"My guess, that's the hole where Mordy and Krieg were dragged underground." Lilith says with confidence.

Dr. Zed comes out from hiding behind the crate that is next to the giant, corrosive pond and joins the vault hunters saying, "Why the hell would threshers kidnap people and bring them underground?"

"They are gathering, the best warriors alive, to fight to the death." Zer0 says with a question mark projected from his helmet.

"That…sounds awesome." says Brick with a smile on his face.

The four jump down into the hole, Lilith first, then Brick, Zer0, and lastly Zed. After a short while of walking, the only lights were the glow from Zer0's "…" on his helmet and Lilith's tattoos and eyes. Brick eventually couldn't resist complaining and says, "I'm bored, I wanna punch something." just before punching the ground and making a huge vibration that shook loose the soft dirt above which made things even harder to see. Lilith turns around and gives him a hit to the shoulder before feeling another vibration in response to the last, then a third, and a fourth, and finally the fifth one which made the ground they were standing on give out and they began falling into the giant, crystal-lit room. Lilith acts fast and teleports the group down to the floor, although everyone is still dizzy after they land.

While everyone is recovering, Mordecai runs over to the four and grabs Zed's wrist saying, "Krieg needs you" and starts dragging the doctor towards his unconscious friend.

The doctor, annoyed by the hunter's over eagerness, says, "Alright alright I'm getting there just hold your horses." Zed kneels down over the psycho and examines him, measuring vitals like pulse, blood pressure, and breathing rate and determines, "There's nothing wrong with him, physically that is. He does seem to be considerably weak though, but I can't give you the definite reason because I ain't a real doc."

By that time the other three had rejoined the group and were observing Krieg, Lilith asks Mordecai, "What's up with this siren Mordy, and what did she do to Krieg?" but before he could answer Brick interrupts by asking another question, "Nobody hurts my friends! Where is she, I wanna punch the siren power right outa her?"

"After we were dragged underground, we woke up in a small, dark room and followed a tunnel that was littered with a bunch of crystals and ended up in this big room. Krieg started to run into that building over there but this girl walked out first, stopped this crazy guy with just her hand. She had blonde hair and tattoos just like yours Lilith, when I mentioned that I was going to tell you, she freaked out and knocked both of us back" explained Mordecai. "When I managed to regain my senses, Krieg was out cold and I ran in to kill her, but she was hiding in the corner and didn't even notice me. She just seemed so frightened by something, I couldn't take the shot."

"You're a sniper and you couldn't take the shot because she didn't even notice you?" Lilith questioned sarcastically.

"I thought that if she could speak with another siren, we could get through to her and calm her down and get some answers about Krieg.

"I still wanna punch her" says Brick, angered by his injured friend.

"No Brick, I only called you here to help kill the threshers, you don't do well with talking."

Lilith begins toward the spiderant hut and quietly enters, she sees the scared girl cowering in the corner, not saying anything, and says, "Hello, who are you?"

The girl turns her head to look at Lilith, she doesn't say anything, but has a sad expression on her pale face. "My name is Lilith, I'm a siren, what's your name?" asks Lilith as she crouches down beside the girl.

In a small, weak, innocent voice the girl responds, "I am Sybil, I am also a siren." Sybil stops shaking and rotates her body to face Lilith, "What can you do?"

"I can teleport and blast enemies with energy" the siren answers with a prideful tone.

"That's so cool, I wish I could do stuff like that!" proclaims Sybil whose voice suddenly changes to a childish excitement, she looks up admiringly at her newfound friend.

"If you help me take care of a friend, you can join us and meet another siren." Lilith says, thinking that it would be good to have Sybil on the vault hunters' side. That and she really doesn't want to make an enemy out of one of her kind, who can make a great deal of trouble for them if neglected.

Lilith motions her hand for Sybil to follow her and they go outside to see the group, Mordecai is on the ground leaned against the wall to the right of Krieg with an arm rested on one lifted knee, Brick standing on the opposite side with his arms crossed, Dr. Zed maintaining Krieg's health, and Zer0 admiring the beauty of the crystals that seem to engulf the room. When they see the golden haired siren skipping happily towards them, they make way for her to reach Krieg. She stops, slightly bent over with her hands together behind her back and arms straight saying, "Oh he'll be fine in a few hours, but will probably wake up pretty weak."

Mordecai asks her, "Why will he be weak?" with a little curiosity.

"Because there is more than one of him now, but I don't know how many" the playful tone was starting to annoy Mordecai, who was now standing. Everyone became more interested when she said this and Lilith looks especially surprised and says, "More than one of—what exactly is your siren power?"

"I split things into a bunch of different parts, but each one is always less powerful than the original." Says Sybil.

Lilith is stunned by the easiness with which she gave her answer, "How many parts did you split him into, and where are they?"

"Silly, I already told you I don't know how many, but they will show up just randomly anywhere in the world" Sybil answered her giggling.

"Anywhere in the world!? Infierno, that sounds bad Lil, a bunch of psychos as powerful as Krieg running around and we don't even know how many there are!" Mordecai is starting to freak out as he realizes what could happen if the Kriegs find their way into Sanctuary.

"Calm down Mordy, she said they would all be less powerful, so it might be just like a few normal psychos and no di—"

"Well… that's true but…." Sybil interrupts as her voice changes to quiet and uncertain, "They will all look like him and have one characteristic of the original enhanced."

"What do you mean enhanced?" questioned Lilith, worried about the soon to come answer.

"Like if he likes shooting, there will be a version where he only shoots, if he doesn't talk much, there will be a version that never talks, things like that."

Zer0 finishes observing the crystalisk supplied wonder and says, "One psycho is bad, too many will end all life, we must find them all."

Lilith sighs and says, "I know, I know" and turns to Sybil to say, "We could always use more help to fight the things out here that want us dead, which is pretty much everything."

With this the new siren starting to glow black again saying, "I can't go anywhere, I won't risk them finding me" in a stern, commanding tone and attempts to blast Lilith, but her attack is negated by Lilith's own power. Brick gets ready to beat the siren to a pulp but Lilith stops him by teleporting him a few yards away, and he gets the idea.

Sybil and Lilith's powers are both trying to overwhelm each other when Lilith calls out to her confused friend, "Who's going to find you?"

"The so called doctors who experimented on me, trying to use me for their own personal gain" the surging force of the two energies is preventing any of the others from helping Lilith, "They hired mercenaries to capture me at all costs, I just now realized you all could be some of them."

"We weren't hired by anyone, we just came down here to help ours friends who were pulled underground by threshers." Sybil hears this and relents, containing her power as Lilith pulls back. Sybil collapses down to her knees and bows her head and says, "I'm sorry, I tend to be very cautious and I get emotional easily" she apologized as the innocence returned.

Lilith, also weaken by the overuse of her ability, collapses to her knees and says, "Whoever is trying to capture you, I guarantee that if you join us, we can protect you from them."

"That may be so, but I can't promise that I won't attack you if I lose control of my emotions" Sybil warns them, not wanting to hurt the kind strangers she just met.

"That's alright, our group is like a gathering of circus freaks anyway, you'll fit right in" she stands up, having regained her strength, and goes over to the girl and puts her hand on her shoulder trying to comfort her. Lilith offers her hand to Sybil and helps her up with a smile saying, "We can handle another siren, there's nothing you can dish out that we can't take." Brick picks up Krieg and throws him over his shoulder saying, "Welp, this trip was boring, besides the threshers, I didn't get to punch anything" he turns around and starts walking toward the only opening to the room other than the one made by him striking the ground, "Next time you call us Mordecai, make sure there is more fighting. "Mordecai chuckles and says, "Next time, I'll be taking them out on my own" and follows Brick.


	4. The Second War

Lilith and Sybil wait for the rest to leave before Lilith asks, "So how did you manage to collect all the animal parts?" Sybil looks at her with a confused expression on her face, "You know the crystals, spiderant shells, and thresher tentacles."

"I don't know, when I first arrived on Pandora, I came here and found this tunnel empty and devoid of life. I just hid underground for a while and eventually the threshers started bringing me the crystals and spiderant parts, I embedded the crystals into the walls so it would look like daytime even while underground, and I made the house to sleep in." Sybil explains, her voice sounding vaguely similar to Lilith's.

"Wait wait wait, you're telling me that the creatures that are always trying to kill us just suddenly started bringing you animal parts? That's ….just…..weird" Lilith says with great disbelief.

"Agreed, but can we get out of here now, I'm kind of tired of living my life underground" says the very anxious Sybil.

Lilith begins to glow as she grabs onto her friend's shoulder and says, "I'm not walking for hours through that long ass tunnel, plus I want to beat Brick and the others" before phasing herself and the other siren right in front of the entrance to the thresher tunnel. As soon as they appear, they hear a faint echo from inside the cave, "Just because you're carrying Krieg doesn't mean you get a head start" that sounded like Mordecai's voice.

"Who says I need a head start, I could beat you with one leg chopped off" replied a voice that sounded like Brick's.

Zed, starting to get annoyed, says, "Stop lollygaggin' and go already." As this was said, the two competitors darted down the tunnel as fast as they could, fighting for space in the small hole. Once Mordecai breaks past Brick, his light and slender body gives him a huge advantage while Brick's hulking frame only works to slow him down. Mordecai eventually climbs out of the tunnel and sees the two sirens and immediately laughs before Lilith says, "What took you guys so long, we made it here ten minutes ago." Sybil tries to correct Lilith because they just got there, but Lilith puts a finger over her mouth to shut her up.

Mordecai yells back to his competitor saying, "Even if I beat you I can't beat the sirens" and chuckles slightly afterward, sitting down with his back against a container.

Knowing knows exactly what this means, Brick says, "Damnit Lilith, no cheating!" but when he climbs out everyone can see the giant smile on his face.

The trip back to Sanctuary was a short one, the enemies still hadn't respawned and everyone took the fast travel station because no one, excluding Brick, felt like dealing with the bandits in Sanctuary hole. Once they arrived, everyone went separate ways except Lilith and Sybil, who headed to the HQ. Sybil felt very uncomfortable having all the people's eyes on her because of her tattoos, and her stature changed from confident to shy. They had a difficult time getting the new siren past Tannis without her knowing, Lilith distracted her by offering free samples of her fried pickle tasting hair while Sybil snuck past when her head was turned. When they both get upstairs, Lilith ECHOs Maya saying, "Where are you right now?"

"I'm in Eridium Blight, reigning down my fury on some bullymongs" Maya says, with sheer happiness in her voice.

"Get back to Sanctuary as fast as you can, I've got a big surprise for you" says Lilith smiling and looking straight at Sybil, who is making herself as small as possible while standing up.

Maya picks up a bullymong with phaselock and says, "Ha! I own you!" before replying to Lilith with, "I'll be there soon."

Lilith hangs up and says to Sybil, "That was Maya, the second siren you'll be meeting, I'm sure she will be glad that we have found another of our kind. I wanted to introduce you to her first for obvious reasons." And then sits on the edge of the map table, crosses her legs, and puts her arms behind her for support.

Sybil, in her weak and shy voice, asks, "What can she do?" and lightly sits down on the chair next to the entryway.

"She traps enemies in midair and shoots the living hell out of em while they're defenseless" Lilith says with a chuckle as she imagines all the helpless creatures just waiting to be slaughtered. Sybil just looks down at the ground with her hands on her lap and taps her foot.

Maya, after killing all the bullymongs behind the Hyperion gate, runs back to the fast travel station and attempts to teleport to Sanctuary, but as soon as she hits enter a blaze of electricity surges from the machine. Disappointed, she yells in utter frustration, "What the hell!" and takes a look at the back of the machine and sees a giant gash running diagonally across it. She sighs, knowing that only her deranged friend Krieg would have done this, and spawns a car from the Catch-a-ride station (a bandit technical the color of eridium) and headed to The Dust. Riding across the desert she doesn't even bother to turn her head to look at the many bandit trucks that can only get a few shots at her before she is out of sight, she pulls up to Ellie's garage to see that Ellie has tied up a few bandits and placed them on the crusher. Maya waits to see them get squashed but Ellie seems to be hesitating and asks her, "Any reason you're crushing these guys other than for fun?"

Ellie turns around and says, "Well howdy, didn't see ya there. Yeah, I'm tryin to get rid of those pesky spiderants in front of my garage and they seem to like killing bandits so I thought I'd use em as bait."

"Is it working?" Maya asks, noticing that no spiderants are even approaching the bandits.

"Not as well as I had hoped, but there may be some hope yet" as she sees a group of the four-legged freaks crawling toward them. The two ladies stand still watching the spiderants take bites out of the immobilized marauders and Maya doesn't notice the regally armored golden king sneaking up behind her. Just as the spiderant jumps to attack Maya, Krieg comes running from outside and grabs its hind leg and rips it clean off, pulling the spiderant back down to the ground. He then holds down the now three-legged creature with his left hand while he chops off its head using the blade on the severed leg screaming, "The pretty lady wants the gory guts of pain meat!"

Maya calmly turns to look at Krieg and tries to hide the big smile that is creeping across her face, the psycho takes the head of his slain foe and chucks it at the garage yelling, "The sweet nectar of life oozes from your soul!"

Ellie's eyes watch the head fly and land right in the middle of the top of her garage and says, "I like that decoration, I think I'll mount that head right there and it'll look badass." Krieg stands up and starts to calm down from the adrenaline of the kill, he remains silent as he watches Maya come closer to him.

"Good job big guy, thanks for the life save." Maya praises Krieg as she smiles right at him.

Krieg just stares at Maya, admiring her beauty, she had learned to ignore it because she knew he couldn't help himself and all of a sudden they hear Ellie say, "Bye bye for good you stupid little bugs" as she pulls the lever and watches a mixture of red and blue blood spurt out from inside.

Maya turns back to Ellie and says, "I have to go now, glad you took care of your spiderant problem" before walking over to the fast travel station and entering in "Sanctuary" She is about to hit the button to initiate travel when she looks back at Krieg, who is still staring at her, and says, "You coming, big guy?" Krieg doesn't say anything but calmly walks over to his friend and Maya grabs his shoulder and presses the button.

Mordecai had bought Krieg some rakk ale from Moxxi's, he thought he needed some as soon as he heard that he had been split into a bunch of clones and he knew that bringing him into a place with loud noises and flashing lights would have been a bad idea, but he didn't expect what happened when Krieg got drunk.

"Krieg, put Moxxi down, you're gonna hurt her!" Mordecai yells at the rampaging psycho, who went crazy after his fourth bottle and charged into the bar, taking Moxxi up under his arm and swinging his axe aimlessly. He eventually made his way back to HQ and started chopping away at the balcony railing all the while laughing nonstop. Mordecai pulls out Blood's little bro and loads it with the same tranquilizers he used to subdue Bloodwing, and shoots Krieg in the back of the leg. Krieg starts to calm down as he drops Moxxi and his axe, feeling weakened and sleepy he hangs the front half of his body off the rail and falls asleep. Mordecai helps Moxxi up and says, "Sorry about that, I didn't know how he would act when he was drunk."

Moxxi stands up fixing herself and says, "That's okay sugar, I'm used to being manhandled" before walking back to her bar. She was too shaken up too notice the new recruit that was standing right next to the entryway with Lilith trying to avoid Krieg's swings.

Maya and Krieg arrive in Sanctuary in Pierce Station and immediately start heading toward the Crimson Raider HQ, Krieg had learned to keep his cool in Sanctuary considering there are no enemies there. While walking through the town, everyone seems to be avoiding the psycho more than usual, then they turn the corner to the HQ and see Krieg dangling off the rail.

Confused at the sight, Maya runs inside and upstairs to confirm what her eyes told her, while Krieg follows closely behind her. She runs over to the rail and pulls the unconscious psycho onto the ground face up by grabbing his belt, looks at his face and turns around to see another Krieg standing right behind her. "Whoa, there's two Kriegs?" she says in shock with slight satisfaction that there are now two people infatuated with her.

"Looks like you found one of them" says Lilith, expecting the reaction of her friend. Maya turns to face Lilith who, in her excitement, hadn't realized she was in the room. Lilith points out Sybil and says, "Meet our newest recruit, Sybil, she's a siren. She's also the surprise I told you about" folding her arms and shifting her weight to the other leg.

Maya recovers from her state of shock and regains her composure and says, "Well what do ya know, never thought another one so soon" then turns to Lilith and asks, "Is she the reason why there are two Kriegs?"

"Yup, she can clone things, but each clone is weaker than the original" Lilith says trying to give Maya a quick summary of what she knows.

Maya turns back to the third siren, stretches out her hand and says, "Nice to meet ya, what's your name?"

Again in her small and shy voice she responds, "I'm Sybil, it's nice to meet you too."

Lilith realizes an important detail in the siren's powers and asks her, "You said each one would have a quality of the original enhanced right? So then which one is he?"

Sybil's attitude becomes confident as she says, "I can sense the clones when they are close enough, and when I am touching one I can tell which attribute is enhanced."

Maya turns to the still conscious Krieg and asks him, "Hey big guy, you wanna let this girl check you out for a bit?" Krieg doesn't respond but instead just remains still, trying his best to stay calm for Maya.

Sybil approaches Krieg, puts her hand on his forehead and her tattoos and eyes start to glow the same dark black as back in the cave, Krieg begins to get restless and finds it harder and harder to stay calm. Maya again smiles at him and puts her hand on his shoulder to relax him, knowing that he would have gone into a rampage had she not.

Krieg closes his eyes and allows his friend to do what she wants, shutting off all of his senses for everyone's sake, and Sybil begins to speak as if she is trying to imitate a low, masculine voice saying, "My God, she's even more beautiful when she smiles, I wish I could tell her that, but this body is not under my control." Everyone realizes that it is Krieg talking and not Sybil and after hearing this, Maya can't help but put a huge grin on her face and her cheeks turn redder than insta-health vials; Lilith and Mordecai smile and snicker at how embarrassed their friend is at his remark.

A few moments later Sybil removes her hand from his forehead and stops glowing and Krieg wakes up and collapses to the floor, drained of strength. "It's lucky that we found this one first" Sybil says before sitting down, "This one has the emotion of love enhanced tenfold."

Mordecai looks at Maya and says, "After seeing Maya like that, I had a feeling it might be that one."

"Well we can't have the same name for both of em, so what should we call this one?" Lilith asks the group.

"Liebekrieg, his name is Liebekrieg" says Sybil without giving anyone else a chance to speak. Maya blushes again, hoping that she will get her own personal Krieg to follow her and protect her whenever she can't protect herself.

While Maya is lost in thought, Axton comes over the ECHO saying, "There's a strange, blinding light brighter than the sun coming from the top of the volcano, you got any ideas about it Lilith?"

Lilith turns to Sybil and asks, "Can you tell if it's another clone?" and Sybil replies with, "I'm not close enough to sense it from here." Lilith gets back on the ECHO and tells Axton, "Don't check it out just yet Axton, we'll be at Eridium Blight soon, and we're bringing a new comrade."


	5. The Volcano

"Alright, I'm at the base of the volcano, I'll wait for you here" says Axton. Lilith turns to Mordecai and tells him, "You can stay here and watch the psychos, don't get them drunk again."

"Hey, cut me some slack, I would have needed a drink after going through what he did" says Mordecai, feeling guilty about the whole ordeal before Lilith starts heading to the fast travel station with Maya and Sybil. Once they get there Lilith attempts to travel to Eridium Blight, but the name is not on the list of locations and she asks Maya what the problem is that she can't fast travel to that location.

Maya sighs and puts her hand on the back of her neck saying, "Oh yeah, I tried to use that one on my way back here, but it looks like Krieg did a number on it so I went to The Dust instead."

Lilith lets out a small laugh and say, "Alright then, to The Dust it is" as she selects it and hits enter.

When they transport in, Ellie is too busy working on a new car to notice them digistruct a truck and leave. Across the desert, they notice a strange lack of cars trying to kill them, or any living thing for that matter, and that the air is slightly more littered with floating sand than usual. Once they cross the gate to Eridium Blight, Sybil immediately gets a bad feeling and says, "I can sense one of the clones, that light at the top of the volcano is probably one of them, but I don't think he's gonna be friendly."

Maya looks up at the light, wondering what kind of attribute Krieg has that would cause such a spectacular sight and says, "Don't worry, I can calm him down no matter how bad of a rampage he's in."

They pull up as far as they can to the base of the volcano, when they get out of the car Axton sees them and says, "I'm honored to have three lovely ladies escort me" as he grins devilishly.

"Don't let it go to your head, you don't know the reason why we're all here" Lilith says, trying to knock him back to his senses.

Her words fall on deaf ears as he immediately goes up to Sybil and says, "And is this blonde beauty the new friend you told me about?" as he takes her hand and kisses it.

Sybil without hesitation slaps him and says, "I'm their new friend but I am sure as hell not yours" and walks past him without another word. Axton, pleasantly surprised by her attitude and rejection, turns around and watches her walk away with desire gleaming in his eyes.

Maya notices his stare and tells him, "She's also a siren and the reason that there are now two Kriegs" turning back around to join her friends in leaving Axton behind.

His expression changes from devilishly grinning to one of suddenly confused and says, "Wait….. two Kriegs, what are you talking about…. Hey guys, wait up" as he rushes to catch up to the sirens.

As they ascend and get closer and closer to the top they start to hear cries of pain echoing all around the volcano; but even louder is the sound of laughter, a maniacally jovial laughter that terrifies the vault hunters as they get nearer. Sybil grows more certain that it is one of the clones and feels guilty about whoever's screams are coming from above and switches to her frightened attitude; Lilith starts to imagine Krieg in an even worse state of insanity but tries to stay focused on getting to the top; Maya starts to doubt that she can bring him back normal when he's this far gone or if she can bring him back to Sanctuary afterward; Axton, with his sense of pride and honor, is scared but tells himself he has to look out for the sirens.

They finally reach a point where they can't go any further and discover that the clone is at the very top of the volcano, in the Vault of the Warrior and Sybil says, "I don't want to suffer through hearing that horrible laughing again" and covers her ears with her hands and closes her eyes.

"That's ok, I can just phase us up there, no problem" Lilith says as she begins to glow and teleports the four to the stairs just before the drop down to the arena where the six newest vault hunters stopped Jack. They appear and witness the Krieg clone, ablaze with glowing white flames, hurling molten rock at the crystalisks and rakk; the projectiles are so hot that they look like fireworks lighting up the sky.

"I guess we know what the light coming from here is" Axton says still confused about the two Kriegs thing, he had decided to let it go until they got back to Sanctuary.

Lilith, quite impressed with the spectacle, says, "Damn, usual fire can't harm crystalisks whatsoever, but what he's throwing at them is so hot it is melting the crystals."

Maya watches the pure chaos and hopes that Krieg will be able to calm down this time. Sybil notices that he is having way too much fun burning everything alive to notice them and says, "We should escape before he runs out of animals to char" she says, scared enough to abandon their struggle.

Axton again puts on a confused face and says, "What happened to the proud and confident siren I met at the bottom of the volcano?"

Lilith puts her arm on the siren's shoulders, ignoring the commando, and says, "We got three sirens on our side, do you really think he can beat us?" The frightened siren, disappointed that she didn't get to leave, curls up on the ground and buries her face in her legs. Lilith sees that she's going to need some more convincing and says, "Are you just gonna sit there while the friends you just found are risking their lives?"

Sybil looks up and says in a weeping voice, "No, I can try to call out to him and get him to stop so Maya can get through to him."

"That sounds like a perfect plan" Lilith says trying to encourage Sybil as much as she can. As soon as she says that, the Krieg clone finishes scorching all the enemies and notices their presence and Lilith says, "Better hurry up with that distraction Sybil, looks like he found us." The clone jumps on top of one of the statues of an alien and everyone starts dodging the lava he is throwing at them while Sybil hides and focuses on reaching Krieg's mind. The frequency of the balls of lava starts to slow down and the terrified laughter ceases as the clone starts to get distracted.

Maya uses the opportunity to get closer to him every time the furious volley stops, and she eventually gets right under him and calls to him, "Krieg, stop it, your gonna hurt your friends!" as she clings to the base of the statue. The clone recovers from the distraction and looks straight at her, even with the mask on she can tell just from his eyes that he is enraged about something, the fire burning in his eyes is even hotter than that which he is shooting at her friends. He starts throwing his lava at Maya and she dodges them as fast as she can and says, "Krieg, it's me, go back to the normal you, the one that only cared to burn the enemies alive, and not his allies!" Her cries do nothing to end his rampage as she starts to tire and loses her footing on the unleveled ground, she does her best to continue dodging his attacks but they just don't stop. Axton, Lilith, and Sybil get closer as the clone is trying to kill Maya, but as soon as they try to stop him, he turns and attacks them and they retreat back behind the rocks. This gives Maya the time to catch her breath and get back to the base of the statue, "It's me, the pretty lady, remember? Please remember!" she says, not willing to give up on him. Again he ignores her pleas and starts hurdling lava at everyone, frustrated that he hasn't hit them yet.

Lilith, trying to overpower the deafening sound of the flames, shouts to everyone, "We can't beat him without hurting him, just do what it takes to stop him!"

Axton tosses out his Scorpio turret saying, "Sorry to do this to ya bro" as it sticks to the side of another statue and starts firing bullets and missiles at the clone and Lilith starts to glow. The clone doesn't even notice the turret as he continues his barrage, all of the ammunition is melting before it can penetrate him, Lilith blasts him with a pulse of energy but it has no effect at all, and Sybil just sits there not knowing what to do and frightened out of her mind.

Maya can no longer take the heat emitting from him and stumbles while trying to retreat; just before the clone has a chance to strike her down for good, Liebekrieg comes running out of nowhere and jumps up to the clone, knocking him off his pillar of fire and onto the ground. Liebekrieg caught fire when he got close to the clone, but ignores the pain and looks at Maya to make sure she is ok before running toward his foe again. He tries and tries to get another hit on the clone but keeps being pushed back by the flames spewing out of him, when also out of nowhere comes Krieg hitting the clone from behind. The four others are stunned by this sudden turn of events and the sight of three Kriegs, all on fire, fighting with all their might to overcome each other. Maya soon shakes off the shock and attempts to phaselock the clone but it fails and she calls over the other three and says, "My phaselock isn't working on him."

Lilith says, "My phaseblast didn't work either, do you know why?" she asks as she turns her head to Sybil.

"Ah yes, I forgot to mention that my clones can't be affected by other sirens, only I can do anything to them" she says switching back to her confident voice.

Lilith sighs and says, "Well this sucks, good to know I won't be of any help in the fights against these things." Nobody else says a word as Sybil tries connecting to the clone's mind again, and its fireballs get slower and slower, giving the other Kriegs time to get a few good blows in. Once the clone is weakened and is kneeling on the ground and huffing in and out, Maya stops the other two and goes in closer to him, kneeling in front of him.

"It's ok, you don't have to burn anything else right now, you're done" she says as she puts her hands on his shoulders. He stares intently into her eyes for a moment, then closes his eyes and falls back in exhaustion and the other two seem to not acknowledge each other's or the clone's presence and just stand there waiting.

Axton comes up behind Maya and says, "You didn't say anything about a third Krieg, will someone please explain this to me?" he says no longer willing to wait until they got back to Sanctuary.

Lilith closes her eyes and lowers her head, as she is annoyed by the commando's stupidity saying, "Her siren power is to split things up into clones. When we met her, she accidentally used her power on Krieg so now we gotta catch all the clones got it?" He just stood there, not able to believe his ears, and a few moments later he sees the sirens leaving and follows them.

Maya ECHOs Brick and says, "Hey Brick can you come carry one of the Kriegs from The Vault of the Warrior to Sanctuary, none of us can pick him up and the other two Kriegs can't seem to acknowledge him?"

"Damn, we found another one already, this might not be as hard as we thought. How did we find this one?" Brick replies as he does a few one armed push-ups.

Lilith interrupts Maya's conversation with Brick to say, "Axton saw a bright light and we investigated, there was this big fight and it was a lot of fun."

Brick suddenly jumps up and starts shaking his fist as he says, "What! Why didn't y'all invite me, I didn't get to fight in the la—" Lilith cuts the connection in the middle of his rant, giggling with Maya, as they both love to tease Brick with talks of fights he missed. They know he will eventually realize and come to pick up the body so they continue to head back to The Dust.

On their way back they see the broken fast travel station again and Maya says, "We should probably get Gaige to fix that as soon as possible, it could cause problems later."

Sybil looks at Maya with curiosity on her face and asks, "Who's Gaige, is she another siren?"

Lilith laughs and says, "Nah, but she's someone you might like, as your current personality anyways."

Axton comes on over the ECHO and says, "Hey, will ya wait up, the Kriegs keep distracting me and slowing down the car" getting very frustrated with his situation. Lilith, Maya, and Sybil had all gotten in a car and sped off, leaving Axton alone to transport the psychos.

"What? Are you saying that the big, strong commando can't handle a couple of psychos?" Lilith says sarcastically as Liebekrieg climbs all over Axton's car trying to see Maya in the car in front of them and Krieg has fun catapulting explosive barrels in random places.

"You and I both know it isn't as simple as that" Axton says getting annoyed with her playful attitude. Lilith makes it to the gate before Axton and she gets a head start in The Dust, trying to extend the gap between them; but through The Dust, she can barely see anything because of the air that's heavy with sand. She drives past a few destroyed cars that look like they have been sliced up before exploding and notices an overwhelming sandstorm right behind them, like it is chasing them. The noise from the wind and sand beating against all the rocks and cars makes it hard for them to even hear their own thoughts.

"Do you think Axton can make it out of there? I don't want to lose Krieg!" Maya says, extremely worried about her friends.

"Good point, switch seats with me!" as she gets in the turret seat she looks behind them and searches for the car.

It takes her awhile to find it but finally she does and phases them right next to her, at which point Axton says, "Holy hell, I thought I was gonna die in that storm, next time don't get ahead of me!"

Maya, relieved to see that both Kriegs were all right, focuses on getting to the fast travel station as Lilith says to Axton, "Just get back to Sanctuary before it swallows you up again!" They get to Ellie's garage, which had been shut up tighter than a goliath's helmet, and they all teleport to Pierce Station arriving out of breath, except for the Kriegs of course. After a few seconds Lilith looks at the other five and says, "What the hell was that!?"

"What the hell was what?" Brick asks, just now getting to Pierce Station after letting off some steam by doing more push-ups.

Krieg responds to his question with, "The bloody wall rips off the pain meat and feeds it to hungry hole!"

Maya lets Krieg finish his nonsensical sentence and tells Brick, "Whatever you do, don't go to The Dust. Fast travel to Hero's Pass, and then go to Eridium Blight."

"Okay, why not?" Brick questions her, wanting to know what they just went through.

"Huge sand storm, killed everything there, almost got us too" Lilith answers, fulfilling his curiosity. After that, Brick fast travels to Hero's Pass like Maya suggested and the rest of the crew retire to HQ, resting on anything they can find. Not being able to just stand around for long, Krieg leaves and fast travels to Hunter's Grotto to slaughter some savages and Liebekrieg climbs to the roof (not wanting to stray far from Maya) and starts playing with his axe.

Brick, having already climbed to the top of the volcano, picks up the clone and throws him over his shoulder just like back in the crystalline cave, and heads back down to Eridium Blight without breaking a sweat. He gets to the fast travel station and sees the giant gash and says, "Ooooooh, so that's why I couldn't just fast travel here, that's funny slab" he says, not realizing that the Krieg on his shoulder isn't the normal one. He looks over at the entrance to The Dust, wondering what could've cause a sand storm, but quickly turns away thinking that he should probably heed his friends' advice. Brick gets a bandit technical with the evil candy cane skin and throws the clone in the back before getting in the driver's seat and heading to the Arid Nexus and fast traveling back to Sanctuary.


End file.
